The Conception of the Public Sphere in Australia - Term Paper Example

Question: Is the media in Australia today able to make a useful contribution to the reproduction of a vital public sphere? There has been much written about the disintegration of the public sphere. Whereas previously the public sphere was the subject of communal sentiment and communication, the disintegration of the public sphere is parallel to the rise in private concerns and the competitive struggles of individuals. The increased scope of the world through the incorporation of global communication systems is part of this problem, though as we will see is not the only aspect of it. The rise of the Internet and twenty-four hour news broadcasts forces people into taking into consideration a much broader sense of the world, and with this increase in individuals’ scope comes a greater sense of people’s own insignificance. This then causes people to put that much more effort into their own concerns as this increased scale seems too difficult and expansive for an individual to make any difference upon. As far as Australia is concerned, there should be a way to incorporate the modern media into a constructive reproduction of a vital sphere which should help people feel more involved within the public sphere, though there need to be changes made in order for it to be a more efficient factor. Large corporations are currently the largest factor in keeping methods of communicating through the public from improving, though with many of the latest technological advances it would seem as though many of the old models that the large corporations depended upon are quickly becoming outdated. Some of these changes are already in place, while some have yet to make any progress. The conception of the public sphere cannot be mentioned without discussion of Habermas’ work on it: “I have generally dealt with the public sphere as a communication structure rooted in the lifeworld through the association of natural and civil society” (Habermas 1996: 359). In this view of it, society is highly dependant upon the public sphere in order to function. It is society’s way to agree upon that which needs to be taken seriously and for strangers to be able to form solidarities among each other in order to solve problems. The disintegration of the public sphere means that people are concerned with their own problems, and as such no problems get solved as there is no concentrated effort on any one single problem. The media, though imperfect as it is, is vital to the public sphere for its information transferring abilities. De Tocqueville stated that “nothing but a newspaper can drop the same thought into a thousand minds at the same moment” (1963:111), yet, as was just mentioned, if the source of information is selective in what it is stating, then the public sphere cannot be as effective as it should be. There needs to be more of a variety in voice for the public sphere to operate properly, and this is exactly what the new forms of communication that have been doing. They are not without their own problems, as we will see, but the old models cannot be improved upon in such a way to make them better than what the new models are accomplishing. As Habermas states, “The public sphere can best be described as a network for communicating information and points of view” (Habermas 1996: 360). Without a solid foundation for communication through an ever increasing scope of what it means to exist within the modern world, there can be no real progress made. The modern media was not created to be an aid for the general population, and for this reason its current inception is not proactively enabling communication through the public sphere. This is because its inception was designed by the few in power to increase their power: “From their inception, the media of electronic communication have been structured to benefit the interest of political, military and economic power, as constituted within the control of the few” (Hochheimer 1993: 473). While appearing to be a tool for people to be able to gather more information from the world in general, if the people providing the news are instructed to only put forward a specific view point, then the amount and kinds of information which can be disseminated is stunted. For instance, in the United States at the beginning of the current Iraq conflict, there were not permitted to be disparaging opinions expressed of the administration and its role in Iraq. Because of this, people received the impression that there was a general consensus and approval of the war. This in turn led people to believe that their dissent would receive no attention, and thus a sort of consensus was in fact reached. With a false consensus reached, people are more likely to find it worth their time to attempt to attend to their own personal problems because they feel that those are problems that they are able to be constructive about, and they are not going to feel as though they are any part of a public sphere. There are, of course, other ways for a false consensus to be reached. For instance in the realm of talkback radio, hosts are able to screen their calls and make skewed claims while not offering any proper rebuttal. Most media in general has moved away from any sort of live format in order to be able to fully control the messages that are being sent: “Even television has long since ceased to risk much in the way of live transmissions” (Adams 1997: 14). Radio is the one medium left that attempts to give any sense of live action in transference of information: “It is immediate, give or take the seven second delay required by broadcasting authorities for talk back, lest the innocent ears of listeners be assailed by a libel or obscenity. [It is] the most intimate of the media” (Adams 1997: 16). For all of the supposed intimacy, though, there are still definite ways for talkback radio to be able to give false impressions or consensus. For instance, these types of shows tend to attract a very specific type of audience. If these audiences are polled specifically by the show, then the opinions expressed on the show and by the hosts are more likely to be agreed with by their listeners. If this data is presented in such a manner as to give the appearance that this is a further reaching poll than what it actually is, then casual or incidental listeners might think that there is more consensus in the opinions expressed than there really is: “The ‘we Australians’ and ‘mainstream Australians’ claimed by the talkback operators are a carefully nurtured sub-stratum of society” (Adams 1997: 26). Another approach to undermining dissenting opinions is to attempt to undermine those who hold the opinion. For instance, if a talkback show contains a conservative viewpoint, then a way to undermine a dissenting liberal viewpoint would be to only allow fringe, rude and crude, and extremist dissenting opinions be expressed on the show. If the host only talks to people who hold dissenting opinions who have to be edited for language and are simply shouting into the phone at the host, then it appears that only people who are uneducated in their opinions and are not intelligent enough to articulate their opinions into a reasonable argument actually hold these sorts of opinions. This is a sort of very underhanded way to discredit an opposing opinion, and it is done by both left wing and right wing talkback hosts. Radio is also home to people with more outlandish opinions than is generally seen on television. This makes the range of the perceived public opinion even wider than previously. For instance, famous US shock jock Howard Stern several years ago moved from his regular radio show to a broader reaching satellite radio show. The wide range of opinions that can be found on these types of radio shows are indicative of what a culture in general is willing to find acceptable: “Forget public demonstrations or debate; radio ravers are the kings of mass opinion” (Kelly 2001: 25). The problem with these people voicing their opinions is that people are less likely to be able to connect personally with what is being said, and as such people are going to feel less of a connection to the public sphere and the communication that is being transferred: “Postmodernism substitutes pleasure and difference for reason and universality” (Garnham 1993: 252). In considering this statement, we can see how the rise of postmodernity and these new forms of communication would lead people to feel a sense of disconnection from the public sphere. With a lack of universality in communication, in other words, people are unable to connect across a broad swath of the general public through voiced opinions, and then there is no way for people to utilise the public sphere. Another problem with the media is that it is at times unable to procure the type of information that it is seeking, and it then must substitute the information that it actually received. For instance, politicians are notorious for their rhetoric and information skills: “Bjelke-Petersen also avoided making the wrong kind of news. ‘One of the most important things in politics that I learned…was not to answer the question they asked, but to answer the question you want to answer” (quoted in Rayner 1997: 194). If reporters ask a question of a politician, and this politician answers in such a way as to only communicate the information that the politician wants to be disseminated, then the reporter has no choice but to make the best of the information that has been given. However, this keeps the public from actually knowing the truth of the matter, and it allows the politician to shape the information that is able to be reported about him or her. Without the proper knowledge about various politicians and events that are going on that affect the politician’s time in office, then the public is unable to fully form a proper opinion of the politician. When people are unable to fully form a proper opinion about a politician, and they know that they are unable to do so, then people are going to feel as though they are unable to affect the public sphere in the way that they should be able to. With this feeling, people are less likely to want to take part of the public sphere, they will turn to their own private problems, and thus the public sphere is weakened in yet another way. Fortunately, politicians are not able to fully control the information that is disseminated about them. For instance in the late 1990’s in The United States, the sexual scandal involving president Bill Clinton was one aspect of his presidency that he was unable to control. An interesting aspect of this was the way in which a new approach was taken to an old topic: “But if the scandals which have engulfed Clinton’s Presidency are not new in form, the manner and scope of their transmission are” (Lumby 1999: 113). Obviously people in power and sexual scandals are nothing new, and they were nothing new when Henry the VIII dealt with them centuries ago, yet they were not covered in any way close to they way Clinton’s scandal was. The level of detail, the amount of effort put into networks and journalism in covering this story, and the time period for which it was considered a viable news story were completely new. This falls in line with the rise in the Internet and people’s obsession with the personal: “We live in a world where the boundaries between public and private lives are increasingly unstable” (Lumby 1999: 113). In no previous time were people able to record their own thoughts and private lives and have a medium through which to transfer this information so broadly and so quickly. The rise of the internet and user friendly applications have forced people to think differently about many aspects of the world, from copyright laws, the role of popular media outlets, and the divide between public and private lives. There are blogs on every single topic that anyone can think of, including news, fishing, sewing, music, movies, television, etc. There is a dual strain going on here in the rise of user-generated content. This strain is arising between the old avenues of media which are attempting to keep their old models intact and the new models which are rapidly making anything before them obsolete. The music business is a prime example of this. Since file-sharing programs such as Napster and KaZaa were created and allowed people access to an endless supply of music without having to pay for it, the record companies have been attempting to shut down the free digital transferring of music unsuccessfully. After years of suing various individuals for copyright infringement, the data suggests that more and more people have been using these kinds of services. In light of this, many artists have begun to look at different models. One such artist is the UK band Radiohead, who put their 2008 album out for free for download and accepted donations if the downloading user desired to make one. Without the distancing factor of a major label forcing their will upon artists, more people are able to have access to their favorite bands. What this does is to create a sense of communication between fans of a band and the band members themselves. This sense of connection reinforces a sense of community, and furthermore this promotes a sense of the public sphere. Large companies and major corporations always feel the need to create their own public opinion and views held about them, and this creates distance between people; there is no way for them to connect through a heavily controlled medium. This is simply one example of how the Internet is forcing old media outlets to rethink their approaches. It is possible that the disintegration of these old models will lead to a greater sense of the public sphere. Another facet of the media which has been forced to rethink its ideas about itself is the newspaper business. Tocqueville stated that “Newspapers make associations, and associations make newspapers” (1963 112), and in previous periods the newspaper was the only source for news. As many people were reading the same stories in the same newspapers, people felt as though there was a sense of community; they all knew which problems were considered important enough to be included within the newspapers, and people knew that other people were receiving the same information. As digitized print is so much cheaper to produce and disseminate, the newspaper industries have been forced to rethink their strategies. The news last year of many large newspaper companies coming under heavy financial burden has much to do with the rise of free information on the Internet. On news and political blogs, people are able to get free information that is untainted by the needs of corporate sponsors. Furthermore, the sense that this information is coming from people who are really concerned with the spreading of untainted information creates a sense of community. However, one advantage that the old format of newspapers hold over news blogs is their reliability. This was information coming from a source that people expected to be correct and unbiased, as there was much more fact checking and researching done on the stories which were reported upon. Thus the political and news blogs are much less reliable, and people are more likely to find sources of information that match their own viewpoints and ignore sources of information that disagree with their viewpoints. While in one sense the rise of user-generated content enables people to feel more of a sense of shared communication and of the public sphere, it at the same time supplies people with disinformation that does not allow them to fully take their place in the public sphere. There are ways in which large companies are still able to shape the public’s perceptions of them through the use of the Internet. “They argue that the new communication and information technologies are giving ever greater powers of surveillance and manipulation to power elites” (Garnham 1993: 254). With corporations and governments monitoring people through the Internet without people’s knowledge, they are able to gather more information on people than ever. Also, large entities are able to shape people’s perceptions of them by altering user-generated content. Wikipedia, which is supposed to be a source of information created by people for other people, can easily be modified by people within large corporate entities. If a particular wiki site contains information that a corporation wouldn’t want people in general to know or to have access to, they can simply delete this information, such as health hazards of products like Coca-Cola. Habermas stated that “the public sphere is a warning system with sensors that, though unspecialized, are sensitive throughout society (1996: 359). If information that people need to make informed decisions about products like Coca-Cola is kept from people through the deletion of user-generated content, then the type of warnings that would need to be transferred through the public sphere cannot take place. If this happens, then the public sphere becomes a less helpful tool of communication, and accordingly people are more likely to attend to their own private affairs. The public sphere is vital for the continued existence on of any country. Without it a country is unable to properly address its own problems. De Tocqueville describes a scenario which has already seen the disintegration of the public sphere, and this scenario is obviously one through which no problems could be solved communally: “When men are no longer united among themselves by firm and lasting ties, it is impossible to obtain the co-operation of any great number of them unless you persuade every man whose help you require that his private interest obliges him voluntarily to unite his exertions to the exertions of all the others” (de Tocquecville 1963: 111). Of course, there has yet to be a total disintegration of the public sphere. There are still many scenarios under which the public sphere is still a vital and active aspect of society. It gets stretched thin, however, when the scope of the public sphere gets applied to the world forum. There is simply too much going on in the world at one time for people to be able to feel as though they can affect some change, and the Internet and twenty-four hour broadcast companies play a role in making individuals feel insignificant. On smaller scopes, people are more likely to feel as though they can affect some sort of change. For instance, in regards to a paedophile being released into a local community, the members of that community found that they could band together: “’At last I’ve found my cause,’ said the chief organizer of the protest, herself a woman with no previous experience of any public role. ‘What Debra had probably found…is not “her cause,” but common cause—the sensation of communal motivation’” (Bauman 1999: 10). I think you need to argue your point more here – after all, Bauman gives it as an example of the public sphere in operation, but is a vigilante group which refuses to accept the judgment of the courts an example we would want to emulate or that Habermas or Putnam would endorse? You need to take the positive side of it (things we feel passionate about can still unite us and spur us to action) rather than leave the point up in the air so it can turn negative on you. There are a number of ways you could argue this e.g. Tocqueville in general believed that it was the number of associations which was important rather than their causes – as there would be groups which cancelled others out; Habermas, however, sees this kind of action and the responses to it as both an expression of and a challenge to social and legal norms, and therefore a vigilante group could in fact threaten a democratic public sphere because it was less likely to be prepared to listen to counter-arguments (such as that the person had completed their sentence and should not be punished further). Habermas wants more than a public role – he wants a positive contribution to the social, political and legal fabric. This communal motivation is vital to the revival of any sense of the public sphere. We do need to keep in mind that that this is a vigilante group that is out to harass a member of society that has supposedly been punished for their crimes and therefore shouldn’t be subjected to this treatment. The public sphere needs to remain respectful of the rules that are enforced throughout the country, and while in one sense this can be seen as an example of the public sphere in action, in another sense it can be seen as an example of the collapse of the public sphere. There needs to be more positive facets for the public sphere to communicate about, otherwise the public sphere will become subverted and will not function in the way that it should. The media can absolutely play a vital role in the reproduction of the public sphere because of the new ways in which it is allowing people to communicate in ways that were never previously possible. Old models of communication and business that benefited the few in power are now being rethought and updated in such ways that those few in power are no longer in positions of being able to keep the public contained to the old models. There are many aspects of the media which are currently being updated to include new models and modes of information transference, but it is not complete. The role of large corporations needs to be further diminished, and there needs to be some way of making user-generated content more reliable and more accountable. Adams, Phillip . "Emperors of air" in Talkback: Emperors of Air , Adams, Phillip; Burton, Lee , 1997 , 16-34 . Aronowitz, Stanley. "Is a democracy possible? The decline of the public in the American debate?" in The Phantom Public Sphere , Robbins, Bruce , 1993 , 75-92 . Bauman, Zygmunt. "In search of public space (Part 1)" in In Search of Politics , Bauman, Zygmunt. , 1999 , 9-33 . Beilharz, Peter. "Critical theory- Jurgen Habermas" in Reconstructing Theory: Gadamer, Habermas, Luhmann , Roberts, David , 1995 , 39-64 . Garnham, Nicholas. "The mass media, cultural identity, and the public sphere in the modern world" Public Culture , 5: , 1993 , 251-265 . Habermas, Jurgen, “Civl society, public opinion, and communcation power-extract” in Between Facts and Norms: Toward a discourse theory of law and democracy, Habermas, Jurgen, 1996, 359-387. Hochheimer, John L.. "Organizing democratic radio: Issues in Praxis" Media Culture and Society , 15:3 , 1993 , 473-486 . Kelly, Paul. "Shock Jock democracy" Weekend Australian , :3-4 March , 2001 , 25. Lumby, Catharine. "Media culpa: tabloid media, democracy and the public sphere" The Sydney Papers , 11:3 , 1999 , 112-122 . Lumby, Catherine. "Media culpa - democracy and the postmodern public sphere" in Gotcha: Life in a Tabloid World , Lumby, Catherine , 1999 , 220-249 . Phillips, Timothy L.. "Symbolic boundaries and national identity in Australia" British Journal of Sociology , 47:1 , 1996 , 113-134 . Rayner, Moira; Lee, Jenny. "Democracy and the media" in Rooting Democracy: Growing the Society We Want , Rayner, Moira; Lee, Jenny , 1997 , 194-207 . de Tocqueville, Alexis. "Of individualism in democratic countries" in Democracy in America , de Tocqueville, Alexis , 1963 , 98-99 . de Tocqueville, Alexis. "Of the relation between public associations and the newspapers" in Democracy in America , de Tocqueville, Alexis , 1963 , 111-114 . Read More